“An acoustic bass guitar should be a small contrabass, not a big guitar”
Introducing The Bace
The Bace is an instrument designed for bass guitar players looking for a double bass sound, while keeping the familiar feel of a traditional bass guitar.
The sound is probably as close to an upright bass as you can get with a 34″ scale cello sized instrument.
Features:
Cello body
Solid Spruce top
Solid maple back and sides
Detachable maple neck
Ebony fingerboard
Schaller tuners
Sound Port
Three channel preamp
Dynamic Microphone
Undersaddle transducer
Body sensor
4/4 upright bass strings
34″ scale
7,5″ fingerboard radius
Cello peg
What it sounds like:
How you can play the Bace:
The story:
As a professional bass guitar player who operates in a scene where upright bass is the norm, I have experimented with various instruments to find a good acoustic bass sound. These included fretless solid body P and J Fenders, a semi-hollow Precision A/E, Acoustic flattop basses, Godin basses, a Kala bass ukulele and the Takamine B10, which I toured with for years.
However, rather than thinking of an acoustic bass guitar as a big guitar, it seemed to me that an acoustic bass guitar should be a small contrabass. So using a cello body made a lot of sense!
After several prototypes, I had developed an instrument surpassed my expectations. It can be played horizontally sitting down, but if you choose to have and endpin, also upright like a contrabass. It is designed to be played like a bass guitar, with a flatter fingerboard radius and much lower bridge and smaller neck angle than the violin family (so not for bowing). But…I’m working on a variation that can be bowed, with a larger neck angle and rounder fingerboard and bridge.
How bassists react to The Bace:
Details:
Press:
The Bace was “bass of the week” on the (click->) No Treble website!!
Other variations of The Bace: Thinline and 5-string
Single bridge pickup with preamp. Below is a short demo clip.
Below is the latest addition to The Bace family: a short scale fretted semi-acoustic Bace with a 1/4 size cello body, Big Magnet P-style pickup, and flatwound strings. Not looking for an upright-bass tone this time, but instead creating a woody Old Skool sound. Great for funky grooves, 70’soul, 60’s beat or whatever new stuff your creative mind gets inspired to play on this fun instrument. It looks a bit like a “Beatle” bass, but this is a real cello body, and it sounds more like an acoustic P-bass!
